Daily Archives: September 13, 2014

The Isolation Centre was more commonly known as Preston House. It had once been the manor and grounds of the noble-blooded Herald Preston, whose line had died off in 2027, leaving the property in public hands. The demesne had served as a park and the manor as a museum, until both of those fell out of favour with the public as weekend diversions.

Because it was on prime property at the City Centre, there had been talk of tearing it down and cashing in on the property value. Prime Minister Sedgwick had intervened. He was one of those romantics who still saw beauty in what buildings of old remained. He persuaded the Parliament that it was a perfect place to serve a different, more urgent, public service. So the the nice stately home with a lovely garden became Isolation Centre; where they kept those who had misplaced their minds until the mad, or someone more qualified, could find an adequate replacement. Or until they died an untimely death. Whichever came first. Death often took the place of reason.

See, the challenge for the Government and for the Ministry of Public Health was that not everyone responded to their prescriptions adequately. This gave birth to a number of Congresses and Industry Conferences for those involved in Pharmaceuticals. No one complained about that aspect of things. Everyone loves a good conference, especially the ones in fine locations which can take days to get nothing done. (There’s not much point in doing nothing quickly. To be done right, doing nothing takes strategy, careful planning, and savvy. Public speaking is a must.) The conferences continued, and so did the madness.

Having people run around displaying erratic emotions, because the medications the government mandated didn’t take, was problematic. When nothing else helped, city-dwellers were transferred to a temporary residence at Preston House, for a maximum stay of two months. When that period was up, they either got better or they had an unfortunate strong negative reaction to their prescriptions. Or they committed suicide before anyone could stop them. Or they developed strange food allergies. Or..any number of things could go wrong for people who did not sort themselves out in time.

Smart people got better faster than fools and idealists. This world had no tolerance for fools and idealists.

We have no time. We make no time. Time has us and makes us–it’s taking us for a ride. The only way off the temporal omnibus is through the singularity. But it’s roomier here in the space jelly, and there’s cocoa.

The Ticking Box Tales

A little story, part of the mythology of How Not To Do Time Travel, of no other consequence than your reading pleasure.

At just over 1,600 words, this is an eight minute read for most.

Everyone needs a purpose in life and Seeker’s purpose was to find a book. He’d first learned of The Ticking Box Tales when, as a child, in school, he read a story about a man named Scribe, who left his city life behind him and set off to live in a tower, by a river, in the country side, in the company of the Silent men.

The Silent men never spoke. Everything they needed to say to each other, they put down on a note. It was their way. At first, Scribe had trouble with this way of life. He missed hearing other people’s voices. He wondered how his companions might have sounded, if they ever opened their mouths to say a thing. Eventually, he assigned them voices.

He gave a squeaky scratchy voice to Leader who looked very much like a meerkat. He read notes in a deep throaty voice from the stocky Brother Twelve, who worked in the kitchens and mainly wrote down recipes, lists, and complaints about the weather. He was sure that the Librarian, who managed to be regal and approachable at the same time, spoke with a confident warm voice. The Scribe borrowed a voice he had stored in his head from a popular radio presenter, who was a particularly soothing speaker, and assigned that voice to the Librarian.

Soon, all twelve of the men with whom Scribe most often corresponded had unique voices of their own, which sounded out their words on paper. For all the rest there was no more than a nod or the occasional smile in greeting. One never needed voices for that.

There were sixty men in the Tower. Each had a purpose, assigned to whatever strengths they demonstrated in their entrance exams and what history they brought with them. The Scribe’s primary skill was particularly neat handwriting and reasonably good grammar. He was really useless at almost everything else, except fishing. He knew how to fish, had the patient demeanour required for the job, and was assigned to bring fresh fish to Brother Twelve at least once a week. All the other days, when he wasn’t sitting by the side of the river, or wading in its waters up to his thighs, casting, the Scribe sat in the quiet company of the Librarian, in a corner of the library set aside for writing.

There was an elaborately carved rosewood writing desk, at a slight slant, a tiny round hole in which to keep a pen, and an ink bottle full of rich dark ink fixed to a small top shelf just above the slanted lid with a lip which held papers in place. The desk stored documents in process in its belly, when the Scribe was away from his post.

When he was first assigned to the Library, Scribe had been shown his pleasant well-lit nook, by an arched window which looked down on the back gardens, and given the simple instruction: “Write.” It was a perplexing instruction to Scribe, who immediately scribbled: “Write what?” on the back of the note. The Librarian had replied: “Write now,” just below Scribe’s own scribble, then turned his back on Scribe, returning to his duties of putting books back in their proper place.

Scribe did not write. He did not write for hours and he did not write for days, which turned into weeks and months. Instead, Scribe thought of Now. What was Now and how could he best write it? Each time he tried to think of writing Now he realised that he was really writing Earlier. By the time he could put pen to paper, to form the first letter, Now would already have passed into Then. Scribe could find no way of catching Now quickly enough to explain it in letters.

He half expected the Librarian to reprimand him for sitting at his nook, day after day, either staring at paper, or staring out the window, or looking dead ahead into some imagined point in a non-existent horizon, somewhere between the shelves of volumes on the other side of the room. The Librarian never did. Instead, the Librarian smiled at Scribe pleasantly every morning, passed him a kind little note which said “Lunch?” every midday, and then another little note in the evenings which said “Tomorrow.”

This went on and on. Scribe thought of the elusive Now, caught his fish, gave them to Brother Twelve, and read a book in the evenings to clear his head; until the candle burned all the way down and Scribe was left in the dark to sleep, or to toss in his bed listening for the crickets to say something helpful.

Then one day Scribe sat at the desk and pulled out the pen, dipping it in the ink and forming confident letters on a virgin paper which read: “There is no Now. There is only earlier and later. There was before, and there will be again, but there is no Now.”

It all flowed out of him after that, the Before which was and the After which might be. He wrote volumes of Before and After, until ink penetrated the skin in the middle and index fingers of his right hand finding a permanent home. The Librarian read the product of Scribe’s daily toil on the following day, always nodding his head in approval, smiling, then tearing most of it up keeping a few pages set aside. After the first time that Scribe saw the Librarian tear up his work, he wasn’t bothered by it anymore. He accepted that it was a necessary evil, part of the process of the work, nothing personal. The torn paper was always sent back for pulping and pressing by one of the brothers who had this craft, until it came back clean, ready for Scribe to write on again.

The pages the Librarian set aside were compiled into a volume called The Ticking Box Tales, said to contain all that mattered Before, and everything of consequence After.

When Seeker learned of this book, he knew he must read it. He was only ten, but he knew, he knew, that he had to get his hands on this magical text. Seeker understood that there was nothing more important to do with a life than to find The Ticking Box Tales, and so he told his teacher this would be his goal. The teacher said it was just a story, that there was no such book, but Seeker knew the woman lied. He broke his mother’s heart and said there would be no grandchildren. He broke his father’s heart and said the shop would have to go to a stranger one day, because Seeker would not be there to care for it. He set off as soon as he was able, searched every library and bookstore and trunk sale and charity shop he could find, expecting that one day he would find and read TheTicking Box Tales.

There were years when he made his quest with hope in his heart, confident that this was a mission he could accomplish before returning to the ground. There were years when he wept at night, alone in the tiny apartment he was able to pay for with his inheritance—all he had left to remind him of a family he’d long lost—and told himself he was a fool. There were years when he thought that being a fool was not such a bad thing after all, because so was everyone else. Through all these years, whether with purpose or with loathing, or with hope renewed, or simply out of stubborn habit, Seeker sought The Ticking Box Tales.

When Seeker was old enough that walking to the bus stop (to catch the connection to the rail station which took him to another bus stop to the next place) put a strain on his bones and sinews, he was finally rewarded.

He found a dusty volume, hidden behind a book on tulips, on a forgotten shelf at the back of a coffee shop—which only had the books for decor. He nearly missed the title, as the gilded letters on the spine had been worn down so that they only read “ik ox les.” But that was enough for Seeker–he knew he’d found the book at last.

Seeker sat on a comfortable armchair, just hugging the book to his heart for a very long while; telling the young waitress (who might once have proved his life’s love) to keep his coffee topped up.

Eventually, Seeker got up the courage to open the book, finding proof that he had the real thing in his hands once he read the cover page with the full title written in bold script, illustrated with swirls of beautiful calligraphy.

He read the volume from beginning to end. He read every tale of Then, he read every story of Tomorrow, and he learned that Now never had mattered, after all. He realised that his purpose had not been in vain, but he also saw the danger of this book. He understood why it had been hidden, why there was only the one, why it had to be sought out and, once found, once consumed, that it must once again be hidden—until the next young man thought it worth chasing after. Here was everything of substance, in easy to read letters. Here was all the wonderful, horrible, terrifying, lovely truth.

Seeker absorbed the wisdom of Scribe’s writing; the events of Before and After coming to life in his mind, the sounds of the voices and the images and other senses clear in his imagination. When he was done, when all that could be read was read, and Seeker understood what there was to understand, Seeker planted the book back behind the tulips, paid his bill for the coffee, and set off quietly to die.

It had been a life with great purpose, as great as any other, and that was enough.

Featured Image: The Doomsday Book, illustration, Andrews, William - Andrews, William: “Historic Byways and Highways of Old England” (1900) via Wikimedia Public Domain.